Emotional Settings in Early Modern Pedagogical Culture : Hamlet, The Faerie Queene, and Arcadia

This book is notable for bringing together humanist schooling and familial instruction under the banner of emotions and for studying seminal works of early modern literature within this new analytical context. It thus furnishes unique ways to think about two closely interrelated moral imperatives: shaping boys into civil subjects; and fashioning heroic agency and selfhood in literature. In tracing the emotional dynamics of the humanist classroom, this book shows just how thoroughly school could accommodate resistance to authority and foster unruly boys. In gauging the emotional pressures at work in filial relationships, it shows how profoundly sons could experience patriarchal authority as provisional, negotiable, or damaging. In turning to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Spenser’s Prince Arthur, and Sidney’s Arcadian heroes, __Emotional Settings__ highlights the ways in which the respective emotional and moral imperatives of home and school could bring conflicting pressures to bear in the formation of heroic agency – and at what cost. Engaging and accessible, this book will appeal to scholars interested in early modern literature, pedagogy, histories of emotion, and histories of the family, as well as to graduate students and advanced undergraduate students in these fields. Acknowledgments 6 Contents 9 1 Introduction: Emotional Settings in Pedagogical Culture 10 References 27 2 Discipline and Resistance in the Schoolroom: Emotional Possibilities 30 2.1 I 32 2.2 II 42 2.3 III 48 2.4 IV 52 References 62 3 Paternal Authority in the Home: Emotional Negotiations 65 3.1 I 70 3.2 II 77 References 89 4 Sidney and Heroic Paideia 92 4.1 I 93 4.2 II 97 4.3 III 110 4.4 IV 114 References 124 5 Learning and Loss in Spenser’s The Faerie Queene 126 5.1 I 127 5.2 II 133 5.3 III 136 5.4 IV 137 5.5 V 145 5.6 VI 150 References 157 6 Familial Feeling and Humanist Habits of Intellection in Hamlet 158 6.1 I 159 6.2 II 167 References 179 7 Familial Imperatives and Humanist Habits of Intellection in Hamlet 181 7.1 I 185 7.2 II 197 References 214 Index 216 Front Matter ....Pages i-xi Introduction: Emotional Settings in Pedagogical Culture (Judith Owens)....Pages 1-20 Discipline and Resistance in the Schoolroom: Emotional Possibilities (Judith Owens)....Pages 21-55 Paternal Authority in the Home: Emotional Negotiations (Judith Owens)....Pages 57-83 Sidney and Heroic Paideia (Judith Owens)....Pages 85-118 Learning and Loss in Spenser’s The Faerie Queene (Judith Owens)....Pages 119-150 Familial Feeling and Humanist Habits of Intellection in Hamlet (Judith Owens)....Pages 151-173 Familial Imperatives and Humanist Habits of Intellection in Hamlet (Judith Owens)....Pages 175-209 Back Matter ....Pages 211-218